Lines of whirring and sloshing machines extend far into the rear of this room. The off-white color of the machines appear in mild contrast to the battleship gray walls and flooring, the smell somewhere between detergent and dryer sheets. Beaten and heavily used metal folding tables are the only other objects in this room, their stainless steel surfaces kept clean by the hundreds of articles of clothing thrown over them every day.

At a time when people are busy celebrating the return of their friends and crewmates, Eddie seems to prefer to spend her time watching the dryer across from her turn rhythmically drying laundry with a quiet whir and thump. She sits on the floor, back against a warm churning wash machine, a smoke dangling from her lips. She seems to be lost in thought, or at the very least, sleeping with her eyes open.

Thorn walks into the laundry dragging a bag of clothes, a cigarette on his lips. There are still a few lines on his face where scars have recently healed, a legacy of his time on Scorpia; there's one on his cheek, though, that looks to be a permanent addition to his features. He tosses the bag onto a chair and begins to empty it; the clothes he had with him on Scorpia are in desperate need of a wash, along with the dirties he left behind on the ship. He notices Eddie sitting quietly on the floor; Thorn greets her with a nod and a quiet "Hey, Eddie."

Eddie forms a smile, which is a feat in and of itself. But the expression is sincere, and it even touches her eyes. "Thorn. Good to see you mate. Glad you're back." She takes a lazy drag of her cigarette, "I'd get up, but my ass has made a nice little groove in this piece of deck." She gives a bit of a laugh, then ashes her smoke on the floor to the side of her. "Tired of answering stupid questions, yet? Like 'how was it down there'?"

Komnenos acknowledges her greeting with a quirky little smile of his own as he pulls out various sweaty, dirty articles of clothing. "Glad t' be back." He grimaces as he pulls out a shirt with a bullet-sized hole in the shoulder and tosses it aside. Then he starts slowly sorting all of it, blowing a smoke ring as he does so. "And no, not yet, anyway," he replies to her question with a smirk. "Let's just say I'm quite happy t' be back somewhere I don't have t' jab myself with anti-rads every day, at least." He starts tossing clothes in a washer and starts it up.

Eddie clunks her head back to the washer, face slightly canted towards the ceiling. "I can only imagine. I'm just glad as hades you all found each other, scattered to the winds as you were. We were all up here wishin', but not daring to hope. Some shit, man. But at least we know what's down there now. Even blew up one of their landing sites for the Raiders. Maybe we can clean the whole damn planet of those frakkers and reclaim it. Anything down there worth saving?"

"Yeah… I never thought I'd be that happy t' see a flight of Vipers in the sky above me," Thorn replies, still smiling despite himself. "I dunno about clearing out the planet, though, the place is infested with bulletheads. Hell, my group barely made it out of Paros in one piece." He sobers momentarily, thinking back to the skirmish in the pub where he recieved the aforementioned wounds. "Spent most of my time in the bunker after they found us, trying t' fix the comm systems, so I don't know much about what else was there. I do remember hearing someone talk about a Viper production facility, so at least if those Resistance chuckleheads can keep themselves alive, we'll at least be able t' restock our fighter complement every so often."

Eddie quirks a brow at that last part, "Yeah? Well that's good then. The way we keep getting shot to shit, I imagine our pieces parts are going to run out eventually." Her face scrunches up as she takes another drag of her cigarette, "There's a bunker? How secure?" Her interest is piqued, if for no other reason then he's far more interesting then watching the dryer tumble.

"Cylons haven't found it yet," Komnenos replies with a shrug, as if to say, 'Secure enough.' "It's an old Colonial military communications installation. From what I heard, the Resistance found it after the Cylons found their last hideout." With his washer full, he goes and has a seat on the floor across from Eddie. "Took some doing, but we were able t' help them restore power and access the com equipment. Poet and I managed t' hook a com drone from our Raptor into the dish t' boost the range. That's how we were able t' talk t' the ship at all." He takes another drag and ashes gently on the floor beside him, following her example.

Eddie's faint smile changes a degree or two when Roubani is mentioned, a clear fondness there that even a woman who normally locks up those feelings can't deny. "He's somethin', ain't he?" She asks rhetorically before another drag of her cigarette, smoke is released towards the ceiling, never really having the knack for those fancy smoke rings. "Glad it was you lot down there, instead of me. And I only say that because were they stuck with me down there, I'd have probably been sitting in a corner somewhere, rocking back and forth and sucking my thumb."

It may have been rhetorical, but Thorn nods in wholehearted agreement nonetheless. "That he is," he replies softly. Working with the young pilot-turned-engineer on the surface had given Komnenos a firm appreciation for Roubani's talents. The two wisps of smoke gradually begin to form a conjoined haze above their heads. He looks over at Eddie after her last remark. "I think you'd have been surprised, Mooner. You're a lot tougher than you look," he says quietly, teasing and complementary at the same time; or trying to be, anyway. "Besides, if you think the rest of us weren't scared shitless, you'd be wrong," Thorn continues dryly. "Thought for sure a couple times I was frakked myself down there. How I managed t' keep it together I can't tell you, but you find a way."

Eddie pulls her bottom lip through two rows of perfect Caprican dentistry. "Yeah, maybe." She says quietly, contemplating that for a long moment of silence which gets interrupted by the buzz of her dryer. With a grunt, she hoists herself to her feet to wander over and pop open the machine right next to where Komnenos sits. "I do my best flying when I just stop thinking. Maybe that's the way it has to be in all those types of situations. Just stop thinking and -do- to survive, ya know?" She stops talking so her cigarette has some place safe to sit while she transfers her laundry over to a table to fold.

Thorn grunts in reply. "I wish I knew," he says wistfully. "Seems t' me like I can never stop thinking. Guess that's why they took me out of pilot training and stuck me in the back seat," Anton continues with a rueful half-smile. He slides over a bit to make sure Eddie has enough room, then keeps talking. "That's how it is for most pilots; the good ones don't have t' think, they just fly. It was the same thing down there; if you're going t' think, you'd better think quickly, or you're dead." Another exhale, and another cloud of smoke. "But yeah, sometimes you just have t' go on instinct."

"Always thought I'd be a good pilot." Eddie mumbles around her cancer stick, knocking a bit of ash onto her recently cleaned clothes that she ignores and just keeps on folding. "Now a days, I'm not so sure. Made a frakking nugget mistake, going with heart instead of training. Left my wing mate wide as shit open. Now Jester doesn't even look at me without looking like he just licked an elephant's nethers. You used to stick jockey?"

"Yeah, for all of about a week," Thorn replies, his tone still dry as sand. "Joined the fleet t' fly Vipers, but my aptitude scores were shit. Didn't even make it past the first section of Basic Flight before they decided my education was better put t' use in the backseat of a Raptor." He looks up again at Eddie for a moment, and the sarcasm leaches out of his voice as he continues. "Don't sweat it, Eddie. Everybody makes mistakes at some point. Remind me t' tell you sometime about my colossal frakup during wargames on Solaria, back when I was an ensign. Felt like I was the shit scraped off of someone's shoes for the next month." He's lighthearted for a moment, but then back to seriousness as he continues. "You'll end up saving Jester's barmy arse soon enough, and then everything will be fine. Nothing stays out of balance for long." The last bit almost sounds like something he picked up from a dusty philosophy book somewhere, but hey, it works.

Eddie casts a glance over her shoulder, her hands still folding the tank top in her grasp. "I just have enough shit stirred in air wing, I don't need any more in the soup, ya know?" She gives a sheepish little shrug, and goes back to her chore. "Wouldn't mind being an ECO. There's a whole lot more black and white in that, then the grey that's in flying. Course. I guess I've always been a grey sortta gal."

"From one air wing pain in the ass to another, I think you'll be alright," Komnenos replies with a crinkled eyebrow. "Me, my big mouth's likelier t' get me killed than anything else, y' know?" He shrugs himself, and takes another drag off his dying cigarette. His washer buzzes, and he gets up to start moving his laundry over to a nearby dryer. Thorn works silently for a moment, then gives her a measured look. "Never thought of it that way, personally. Always thought piloting was a hell of a lot simpler. You fly, you shoot; you die or you don't. There's a saying on Aerelon, though… the grass is always greener on th' other side." Another shrug, and a mischievous glint appears in his blue-gray eyes. "You really want t' see what life as a Bear is like, you could request a transfer. Though you ask me, you'd have t' be crazy t' give up Vipers t' do my job."

Eddie snorts quite indelicately, smoke puffing from her nostrils. "Oh hell no. I don't have that brain capacity. One day at the boards, and you'd see my grey matter oozing out my ears and sizzling the electronics. Besides, last thing you're going to want is me in Black Berthings. Your big mouth and my big mouth in one tight cramped place together? Someone's gonna DIE."

Thorn laughs in delight at her response. "Maybe so, maybe so. But then at least each of our big mouths would have someone t' watch the other's back, what?" With his laundry rotated, Thorn lights another cigarette and sits back down. Chain smoking; been doing a lot of that lately.

Eddie grins around the last bit of her cigarette, intent to smoke it down to that acrid tinge of filter. Waste not, want not. The butt she grinds out in an empty coffee can perched on the table for just that purpose. "Yeah, maybe so." The last of her laundry is manuevered into something that vaguely resembles folding, if not just 'neatly wadding'. "You're an alright cat, Thorn. Sorry I didn't get a chance to learn that before."

Komnenos shrugs. "You're a pretty cool chick yourself, Mooner. And hey, there's nothing t' apologize for." He shakes his head, one of his patented half smiles at the ready. "I'm the one that sat in his bunk and barely poked his head above water for the first few months I was here." He smokes thoughtfully. "Y' know, it was weird t' think after Warday that I'd be stuck with the same group of people probably until I die. But now I can't think of a better group of people t' spend the end of the world with." That's a rare bit of sentimentality from Thorn, but an honest one.
"Well, for the most part, anyway," he finishes with a smirk. "Every group has its share of stinkers. But overall, I think we've got a good one."

Eddie starts piling her folded clothes back in the rucksack she drug them down in. As he comments on the 'stinkers', Eddie's grin cracks again. "I can name a few that I'd like to have take a picnic in a faulty airlock. But yeah, I guess. If you're going to be stuck with folks until the end of days, we could of done worse. Not so much people I miss back home. But things. Like my favorite place to get a slice of pizza at three in the morning, or the way my mother's piano felt beneath my fingers. Cold ivory." She's talking more to her clothes then she is to Kom by the end of that, drawn into the memory. With a sharp shake of her head and a hard cinch of the drawstring, she pulls out of it. "So much for that."

"That was the hardest part about being on Scorpia. Not the Cylons, not the incessant wondering if anyone was coming back for us," Thorn replies in a hushed tone. "But the constant reminder of what was lost and can never be again, all our old lives existing only as twisted debris and radioactive wasteland. No more road trips in the summer, no more midnight walks on the quad, no more sitting in dad's favorite chair when he's not around." Yeah, similar things have been weighing on his mind as well. "Always told myself I wanted t' live t' see the world change." Another shake of the head. "Sure as hell didn't mean this."

When she walks by on the way to the hatch, Eddie claps Kom on the back of the neck. It's not much in the way of affection or comfort, but coming from Mooner, it might be a greater gesture then he realizes. No words accompany her touch, she just leaves it there for a second, then lets her hand drift away as she heads for the hatch with a quiet, "See you."